A Sunday full of questions for Dolphins

Despite loss to defending champions, Dolphins are 3-2

MIAMI GARDENS — From one side came a 260-pound pass rusher breathing fire named Terrell Suggs. From the other side came a 265-pound pass rusher breathing fire named Elvis Dumervil.

There was no escape. No exit route. And Dolphins quarterback Ryan Tannehill didn't have the time, or on that final drive the good sense, to throw the ball away.

So that was Sunday's story.

"It's hard to function when you're going backwards," Dolphins coach Joe Philbin said of his offense after a 26-23 loss to Baltimore.

And that's the end of kidding ourselves anymore.

The Dolphins had a chance again Sunday to show the football world how much they've changed. Instead, they showed how much work they have to do on offense.

If there was ever a time the Dolphins needed to see a bye week, ever a time to collect themselves and reorient some strategy, it is now with this team. Because the most telling point of this Dolphins season to date isn't how they've slipped the last two weeks.

It's still their 3-2 record.

It's still how they've had the toughest schedule of anyone to date. It's still how they're the only team with a winning record while four of their opponents also have winning records (only Atlanta is 1-3).

The Dolphins just came out of a five-game buzz-saw that threatened to sink their season. And they didn't just survive. They put themselves in position to have a playoff season — if they can manage their two glaring weaknesses better.

"I think we can all see where we need to work and what we need to do to get better," Philbin said.

First of all, they need a semblance of a running game. You don't need a great running game in today's NFL. But you need a serviceable one. You need one yard when it's demanded, and the Dolphins couldn't get a first down from that distance three times on Sunday.

They ran 11 times for 22 yards on Sunday. They asked Tannehill to throw 40 times. That's not an imbalance. That's abandonment. And you can see it better when you parse the numbers even more.

Of their nine first-half runs, four came on first down and went: minus-1, five, two and one yard. So on three of the four times they ran on first down they put themselves into a second-and-long situation.

"That's asking for trouble," Dumervil said from the Baltimore locker room.

It's asking Tannehill to get hit, and hit, by a good pass rush. That's what happened again Sunday. Baltimore knew Miami couldn't run, knew it was in passing situations, knew the Dolphins line was struggling and so treated the line of scrimmage like a runway to sack Tannehill six times.

"We'll work on it, and hopefully we'll get it fixed," Tannehill said.

The guy who could have made all the difference for the Dolphins, the kind of starter they should have added to shore up this season, stood in a T-shirt on the Baltimore sideline on Sunday.

Tackle Eugene Monroe, a solid starter, was stolen from Jacksonville for two late draft picks. How did Dolphins General Manager Jeff Ireland miss out on that? "Jacksonville was dumb enough to take the first offer they received," an NFL source said.

The shame of it is you see so much progress by the Dolphins. You see Tannehill making progress so that he can throw an across-the-body, 46-yard pass on fourth-and-10. You see Mike Wallace (seven catches, 105 yards) getting involved in the offense.

You see rookie Dion Jordan making the impact play of the game, hitting Baltimore quarterback Joe Flacco and causing an easy interception that Reshad Jones returned for a touchdown.

You see a Dolphins team that has come out of this five-game stretch looking playoff worthy in so many ways. And you see two obvious problems areas that haven't improved at all.

"No one's happy with some things we need to take care of," Tannehill said. "But we'll come in and we'll work at it."

Every Dolphins fan in August would have taken 3-2 for this time. The road lightens up now. The schedule goes easier starting the next game against a Buffalo team without a starting quarterback.

The success of this season doesn't come down to solving the running game and protection problems. It comes down to managing them. It's the bye week, and it's time to use it to say bye-bye to these glaring issues.